COMPARISON BETWEEN "MACRIUM" AND "CLONEZILLA"

Both "Macrium Reflect Free Edition"("Macrium") and "Clonezilla" are free for private, home use.

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"Macrium Reflect Free Edition" is not permitted for use by organizations.

(Organizations can use their non-free version which is known as "Macrium Reflect Full Edition".)

"Clonezilla" can be used by both organizations and for private, home use.

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"Macrium" can be used to back up a Windows computer only when it is running as a Windows application (running from within Windows). When running from its "Rescue CD" as a Linux application, "Macrium" only can restore hard drives and hard drive partitions; it cannot back up hard drives or hard drive partitions when it is running as a Linux application. When running within Windows as a Windows application it uses Windows' "Volume Shadow Copy" service to "unlock" locked files.

"Clonezilla" can be used to back up a Windows or a Linux computer only when it is running from within a computer that has been booted by a Linux "LiveCD" such as the "Parted Magic" LiveCD.

To restore a hard drive or a hard drive partition for a "Windows" computer (with a previously-created "Macrium image file set"), you use the Macrium "Rescue CD" to boot up a computer into Macrium's proprietary distro of "Linux".

In other words, "Macrium" runs from within Windows to back up a Windows computer. It then runs from within it's proprietary Linux LiveCD to restore a Windows computer. "Macrium" cannot be used to back up and/or restore a Linux computer.

In other words, "Clonezilla" is a Linux application that runs from within a Linux LiveCD for both backing up and restoring Windows and Linux computers.

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The "Rescue CD" for "Macrium" can be configured as either a bootable "BartPE" CD or a bootable Linux LiveCD.

"Clonezilla" has to run from within a Linux LiveCD. It cannot run from a "BartPE" CD.

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From within Windows, both "Macrium" has a "Windows service" that allows you to browse and copy individual files and folders from within sets of "image backup files".

With Clonezilla, you cannot retrieve individual files or folders from an "image backup file set" from Windows (since Clonezilla does not run within Windows) nor can you do so when Clonezilla is booted up from within a Linux LiveCD such as the "Parted Magic" LiveCD.

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"Macrium" uses the file extension of .mrimg ("Macrium Reflect Image") for the image backup files that are created during the backup of a hard drive or hard drive partition.

"Clonezilla" makes "image file set" that consists of a lot of different files with different file names and extensions.

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